Question

If you are to be responsible in Supply Chain and Logistics management for a company in the health industry such as in Healthcare/Hospital environment or in pharmaceuticals, or in any sensitive industry during this pandemic, what precautious security measures and risk management, changes and approaches and time management would you take dealing and working with your suppliers/vendors (and their contracts), your manufactures and material handling, your logistics, your distribution centers and warehouses (and inventory) along with your employees, all the way to your end users and consumers?

Answer 1

The demand and supply in the market fluctuates as per the circumstances or natural calamities. we can take the example of horrifying situation like Pandemic. During this situation the most responsible, dependable and actively working industry is Healthcare and safety.

With consideration that I as a responsible person to deal and manage this flow of supply chain during such serious circumstances, one need to have focused planning and alertness about impact of decisions and precautions to be taken.

• Security measures - This is primary factor needs to be consideration in such situation. The medical equipment and medicines are mostt critical and important requirements. while manufacturing and shipping these roducts proper safety and security is required. for example, a effective designated supervisor should be appointed to moniter the flow and quality of products, testing. a group of security should accompany in transit of raw material or finished goods.

• Risk management - Risk is the high factor which needs to be focused on such situation. The risk in such situation can be divided into many catagories. The manufacuring cycle of every medicine or saftey equipments or hospitale equipement should be monitered by specialised expert in that field. The proper testing must be done for the final product under the review of experts. The quality and authencity of products should be measured by an expert as per the decided standards and regulations. The another risk factor can be explained which can be considered as situation based like such pandemic circumstances that is Safety measures. In such situantion the risk increases if we do not prioritise the safety. All the employees, medical staff and workers should be provided saftey by providing face masks, safety suits, gloves, sanitisers, soaps etc. so that they can work without any fear and the risk of any losses can be controlled and monitored. Any error while implementing this measures or negligence in precuations can cause major loss.

• Changes and approaches - I would suggest providing training to employess, medical staff, workers about the change in working style and wok environment to deal with pandemic situation. A working day might not be a regular work day. Employee or medical staff will have to work under pressure and simulteneously will have to take care of themselves with full alertness. To make this happen, one should have positive approach and attitude to form a hope within the surrounding. As a responsible person for this, I would prefer to keep the team at high spirit with positive outlook.

• Time management - As the pandemic expands at very fast rate, one need to value the time while dealing with such situation. Right decision, right implentation, right information, right supplier at right time and right place. The medical equipments, medicines should be produced and delivered within time without any delay or negligence. For this, As a responsible person who is handling the situation, I will have to work with suppliers or manufacturers in timely manner. As there will be high demand of these products in one go from all the areas, we need to have better planning and coordination. The demand should be properly communicated with the supplier along with the expected quantity, process time, delivery time and delivery locations. There should be planned process map. Constant touch with supplier with progress report of production cycle and expected delivery time will help to monitorised this. The team can be assigned to monitor such activities to help with allocating the work area and focusing on centralised responsibilities assigned to everyone. Proper payments should be made to the supplier as per the order to keep the demand suppliy flow smooth.

• Material handling and logistics - The medical equipments and medicines should be handled in very special manner. The packaging of the material should be done as per the specified norms and standards. All the safety should be taken as per the packaging standards of the products. The product should not get damaged while transit whether it is air consignment, road transport or sea consignment. The packaging should be done as per the way of transit selected. All the clearence and documentation of transit needs to be done as per guidlines provided so that the transporter should not face any hold up or challenging situation during transit and there will not be any hold up on the consignment. Proper item description, approvals and certification of the products should be provided as per the company starndards and suggested by quality experts. The taxes and clearance charges should be paid for smooth transit. There should be a designated officer and securtity guards accompany with each consignment for safety measures.

• Werehouse and Distribution centers - All the material should be properly stored and labeled as per the location wise in werehouse. The location details and contacts should be properly communicated to werehouse personnel. I would assign the responsibility to werehouse manager to sagriagate the products as per the location and quantity requirement of each location. the products must be dispatch from each werehouse to every location in timely manner. One should again take care of packaging and safety measures while moving out the products from werehouse to the end location. Proper invoicing, certificates and safty related document should accompany with products for user reference. The proper inventory check should be done in timely manner so that production cycle can be planned in advance as per the demand. In the situation like Pandemic the demand cannot be wait for longer. One need to arrange the supply in fastest way avoid the human losses. To make this happen, the management team needs to communicate constantly with his staff, werehoust workers, marketing managers, inventory managers, sales team and production team.

• End user and Customers - Once product reaches to the destination, I will have to check with end user authorities or customer whether the product has reached in good condition and within given time limit. Proper review must be taken in timely manner from the customer after a use of the product to know th e performance of the product and if there is any need of improvement. Customer suggestions should be taken into consideration. For example if the product like Ventilator is performing as per the provided medical standards or any given medicine is giving the desired outpur result on the patience, whether packaging is done properly for hygine purpose and all the instructions are provided about usage, side effects and safety measures.

By working effectively as a team one can deal with pandemic situation. One need to have close eye on each activities while performaning as there should not be a scope for single mistake which cannot be afford in such situation.